The "New" JJJ&E: Detailing And Weathering A SP Phase 1 GP-9

Friday, February 1, 2013

Detailing And Weathering A SP Phase 1 GP-9

The GP-9 is a fantastic locomotive to detail and weather. It is unique because all GP-7's, GP-9's GP-18's and GP-20's in N scale have interchangeable parts. This allows you to kit bash many variations of these locomotives when it comes time to kit bash them and detail them. Most modelers don't know that all the parts of the GP-7, GP-9, GP-18 and GP-20 in N scale are interchangeable. I'll be using Sunrise Enterprises detail parts for the GP locomotive. Sunrise Enterprises is no longer in business, but I was able to accumulate many of their different detail parts to use on many SP, ATSF and Southern diesel locomotives on the roster of the "New" JJJ&E. Few manufacturers today specialize in supplying the N scale modeler with quality detail parts.

It was fun to work on the SP GP-9. I detailed two of these locomotives, SP #3509 and SP #3498. I used a Dremel tool with very fine diamond points to drill the holes for the detail parts on the locomotive shell and frame.

Photo # 1 SP #3509 completely detailed with Sunrise Enterprises detail parts. These parts include MU hoses, MU Cables Round MU Stands, Antennae, Steam Generators, Rotary Beacons & Stands, High Stacks, Over head Air Tanks, Spare Knuckle Coupler and Speed Recorders. All of these detail parts were used on SP #3509 GP-9 and SP #3498 GP-9.

Photo # 2 An early color track side photo of SP # 3508 GP-9 with all the detail parts cemented in place, on the outer mainline track in the Monterrey Mountains.

Photo # 3 An early color photo of the fireman's side of the SP #3509 GP-9 showing all the detail parts from this viewing point.. The spare knuckle coupler is mounted on the front truck along with the speed recorder.


Photo # 4 An early color photo of the SP #3508 GP-9 showing an overhead view of the diesel. The diesel parts on top of the diesel shell are an Antenna, Steam Generator, Rotary Beacon and Stand, High stacks and Air Tanks.

All the detailing of this SP #3509 GP-9 took about 90 minutes to complete. The next step is to weather this diesel with the Bragdon Weathering System. I already added the detail parts to SP #3498 and weathered the locomotive with the Bragdon Weathering System. I'll post these photo's in a few days.

The photo's below are the initial weathering of SP #3498 Phase 1 GP-9 with the Bragdon Weathering System. The weathering can be toned down by brushing the excess weathering powders from the diesel shell.

Photo # 5 Initial weathering of the SP #3498 Phase 1 GP-20 with the Bragdon Weathering Powders on the fireman's side of the GP-9

Photo # 6 Overhead view of the Initial weathering of the SP #3498 Phase 1 GP-20 with the Bragdon Weathering Powders on the fireman's side of the GP-9

Photo # 7 Comparison of a weathered and unweathered SP Phase 1 GP-9 with detail parts added.

Photo # 8 Another view of a completely weathered SP Phase 1 GP-9 and an unweathered SP Phase 1 GP-9 with the detail parts added. The weathering of SP #3498 will be toned done in subsequent photo's by using a soft sable brush to remove some of the excess weathering.